I'll offer a slightly different viewpoint.
Hard cast bullets work very well, and won't cause much leading- with an important proviso. For a hard cast bullet to work well, it MUST fit the bore precisely. Ideally, it should be a tiny hair over, or at, bore diameter. If you try firing hard cast bullets that are a bit undersized for the bore, you'll discover they can lead quite a bit.
Soft swaged bullets can work very well, for what they are best at- which is low speed, wadcutter type loads. Soft bullets will be more likely to 'slug up'- that is, be expanded to fit the bore when hit by the forces of the powder gases.
Hard bullets don't 'slug up' as easily, so they must be a more precise fit in the bore when loaded to work well.
Keep in mind that leading is caused when the the hot powder gases get up along the sides of the bullet, and begin melting it. When the bullet really seals the bore, that doesn't happen.

__________________
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Jack@huntchat.com

The technical term for "slugging up" is obturate. I didn't know it, I learned it from Mike Venturino. That guy writes some of the best articles on BPCR's I've ever read. And to top it off he goes out to matches and proves his theories. I can't believe the gyrations those guys go through to load those guns for a match. It's rocket science.

Thanks, Billy.
I enjoy Venturino's articles in Handloader, very much. He really does seem to know his business when it comes to BPCR, and loading for old firearms in general.
Worth noting that Venturino and others use a lead bullet in their BP cartridge rifles that is dead soft- he favors 20 parts pure lead and 1 part tin, in one recent article I read.

__________________
“May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter"
George Washington
Jack@huntchat.com

Nothing wrong with the Copper clads. Some folks claim they wear out barrels faster. Could be true, but I have yet to see this happen in the real world. I have been known to put a few rounds down range and the only barrels I have shot out were a 220 Swift
which I bought in 1956 and a 6,5x68 Ackley Improved. Even that scorcher lasted almost 3000 rounds. It's a 300 Win Mag without the belt.

Unless you are shooting really high intensity loads in your pistol you probably won't notice the wear part of the conundrum.

A lot of the love for cast bullets is the nostalgia. Especially the Cowboy action Shooters. Most of those the bullet will barely fall out of the barrel when shot.

I like HOT rounds in rifles. Pistols are a little more dainty and require more love and attention. One case comes to mind. People that shot the M-19 S&W. There used to be a problem with cracked forcing cones. Why? Because some folks like to load them so to speak, a little on the warm side. The best way to shake a pistol to pieces is to shoot a steady diet of hot loads. Practice light and carry heavy loads.

I use a 45LC for Deer hunting. It has seen nothing but 255gr wc's
and 9.1 grs of Universal Clays for a hunting load. Within 100 yards deer die. It's easy to shoot and it doesn't beat up my pistol. And it performs in an outstanding manner.

Excellent observations. I began shooting cast bullets while in college under the G.I. Bill because by casting I could shoot my pistols more. Finally, I observed that for handgun shooting cast bullets usually gave a bit more velocity for the same powder charge weight with similiar weight jacketed bullets. The planets must have been in proper alignment because I got better accuracy out of my cast bullets compared to the more expensive jacketed bullets.

Finally, I did wear out a S&W M28 .357 barrel with cast bullets in the decade of the 1970s because I shot so many PPC matches. That and hundreds of rounds of practice shooting weekly wore out my barrel. In 1981, I went to the S&W Armorer's Course and took the M28 with me to Springfield. S&W rebarreled the M28 with as new 4-inch barrel for $16.50.

Whenever I hear about lead casting, or bullets I hark back to my childhood and my Sister. I was casting to make the soldiers we used to make. I was down in the basement and my Sister had a glass of water. We were cracking jokes and I got her a good one and she stuck her fingers in the glass and wet them and sprayed me. Need I say what happened next? some of the water hit the lead pot and that stuff flew all over He[[ and half Georgia. I still got scars from it.

She redeemed herself though, she helped me paint them. She was very good at things that took concentration and were tedious. I guess thats why she was such a good nurse in later life. I'm just the opposite, a type A, and will go sub-orbital ballistic in a heartbeat.

She just didn't know any better, in some ways shes still that way, and that was over 60 years ago. But shes a blonde so what can we expect. Actually we both were, shes my twin. We had 4 sets of twins in the family. My mom said it saved on hospital bills during delivery, 2 for the price of one. Thats the Jewish part of the family. Mom must have been a real fertile Myrtle.

I have contemplated buying a lead pot and doing some casting for shotgun slugs. Maybe even some round balls for the muzzleloader. I love shooting the roundballs. Theres just something about that I like. Now thats nostalgia.

I can only imagine what it is like to shoot a flint lock. It takes a special person to master one of those.

Hofts,
There is one point the guys left out; with a big bore revolver most jacketed bullets do not expand on game, unless you hit a large bone. The hard cast SWC bullet in a revolver penetrated well and cuts a neat X diameter hole through tissue. The effect is samewhat like an expanding bullet, without the actual expansion. The hard cast SWC bullet makes an excellent medium sized game bullet for a large bore revolver. I only use jacketed bullets in rifles and have been shooting cast for 43 years.
Ed

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"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

"I can only imagine what it is like to shoot a flint lock. It takes a special person to master one of those."

Not really. If you master just two things, you should be good to go. When you put the powder in the pan, don't have it hard up against the flash hole. You'll get faster ignition if you don't. If it's "agin" the flash hole, it'll act more like a fuse which will delay firing. With the powder slightly away from the hole, the flash will set off the main charge instantly.
The other thing is don't let the flash and smoke coming from the pan make you flinch. That's the hardest part.
Keep your flints sharp and tou shouldn't much problem.
Flinters are lots of fun to shoot. One of these days I'll have to get one to keep my caplocks company.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I am a certified muzzle loader instructor though the Hunter Ed program.
Paul B.

Originally posted by Rapier Hofts,
There is one point the guys left out; with a big bore revolver most jacketed bullets do not expand on game, unless you hit a large bone. The hard cast SWC bullet in a revolver penetrated well and cuts a neat X diameter hole through tissue. The effect is samewhat like an expanding bullet, without the actual expansion. The hard cast SWC bullet makes an excellent medium sized game bullet for a large bore revolver. I only use jacketed bullets in rifles and have been shooting cast for 43 years.
Ed

My experience with the Nosler JHP in .44 Mag @1400 f/s, is that it expands too much and doesn't penetrate all the way through our central Texas whitetails (these are not not really big deer). I killed a nice ten point buck with that bullet some years ago. It was a broadside shot straight through the shoulder at 35 yds. from a tree stand. It killed him on the spot, but the bullet was recovered just under the skin of the offside shoulder. That JHP had retained maybe half of it's mass.

I like a good exit wound so that if tracking is needed, there will be a good blood trail. I now use hard cast 250 gr. LSWC's (Keith style) when hunting with the .44 mag. They always have penetrated completely with a good exit wound (half dozen deer or so) even on a straight frontal shot. That bullet exited right in front of the left hip. I have never recovered a hard cast LSWC inside an animal. I do try to hit the shoulder rather than just the rib cage if I can, in order to hit bone for more knock down power, just as Rapier advised.

I use the same loading data for hard cast pistol bullets as for jacketed bullets and have no problem with leading the bbl. That's my take on the hard cast LSWC's in revolvers. As you can tell, I do like them. I have noticed that very high quality hard cast LSWC's cost almost as much, or equal to, jacketed bullets though.